Marshal of Hel Dorado (10 page)

 
    
Boots tapped a cadence as one of the men
followed her, but she ignored it. She had to get outside. Outside, away from
the house and its shrine of memories to Sam’s mother. She would never forgive
herself if she damaged any of it.

 
    
She raced through the foyer to the main
door, pulling it open with one hand and seizing her skirt in the other. The
damn thing was getting in her way, but she dashed out of the door, across the
veranda and down the steps.

 
    
Sam was the wind at her back, just there,
but she spun away from the outbuildings, heading southeast to one of the ponds
she remembered seeing. Water.

 
    
She had to get to the water.

 
    
She was running, skirt in both hands. Her
air came in short, hard bursts that sent stars dancing across her eyes. At the
water’s edge, she paused, panting. Her hands pawed at the bodice, but loosening
three buttons did nothing for the corset where it locked around her ribs,
keeping her from breathing.

 
    
“Scarlett,” Sam seized her arm and spun her
around, but she jerked away from him.

 
    
Struggling with the double row of buttons,
fighting to open the bodice, to breathe. “What’s wrong?”

 
    
He wouldn’t let her pull away, sidestepping
and coming right back in front of her at every twist and turn.

 
    
“Can’t breathe,” she squeezed the words out
past the constriction smothering her. Her knees collapsed, only Sam’s hands on
her elbows kept her from falling.

 
    
The heat was surging up inside of her,
desperate for release. She had to get out of the dress. The water would be
safe.

 
    
“Hold still.” The command in Sam’s words
slapped the panic inside of her, stunning it and she stopped fighting him, her
gaze desperate as he pulled a knife out of his boot and then he was slicing
through the front of the bodice, buttons flying every which way.

 
    
“Sorry Lena,” he muttered. “Turn.” He
twisted her when she stumbled against the skirts, trying to obey. The tear of
fabric rent the air. Her vision blotted out and she was on her hands and knees
when the cage around her chest burst.

 
    
Her ribs expanded as she gulped in the cold
air, the taste of the pond a sting in the back of her throat. Heat poured out
of her hands and she dug her fingers into the loamy clay and dirt that bordered
the edge of the pond. Flushing the heat out into the dampness. Three feet away
a spark struck a rock and she heard the sizzle and pop as it went air born to
land against the water.

 
    
Her temperature spiked and then cold hands
were rubbing against the bare flesh of her back. Even the hot sun washed cool
against her overheated skin. She pushed the flames surging inside of her
through her hands. The yellowed grass shimmered, shriveling.

 
    
“Easy,” Sam was talking to her. His words a
comforting mumble. The cold hand stroking up and down her spine, a second
bracing her as she knelt. Scarlett gulped in more air, feeling the first stone
inside of her explode and the heat rushed out, a trickle bursting the dam of
her control.

 
    
 
Have to get to the water. If I don't,
everything is going to burn.

 
    
The water in the pond bubbled and her
vision blacked out totally.

 
    
A
wareness
buzzed around her lazily, summer flies humming in her ear. Bit by bit, a
shimmer of wakefulness sliding over her muscles, each protesting in turn. Her
chest was the worst, bruised like the fall taken from a green horse and
dragged. Hot and tight, her skin squeezed her bones. Slushy coldness trickled
down her breastbone, pooling between her breasts.

 
    
“Pa’s gone for the doctor.” The muffled
words came from far away.

 
    
“Get some more ice and bring me another
bucket of water from the well.” Sam. His voice was closer, an odd note of
concern pinching his words.

 
    
“I’ve got men hauling some up from the ice
house. Maybe you should come out here, till the doc comes.”

 
    
“And leave her alone?” Censure heated Sam’s
tone. “Go Micah, one of us exposed is enough.”

 
    
“Sam…”

 
    
“Go.” A door shut, closing her into the
pocket of silence. Had Sam left? Scarlett struggled with the dark, forcing her
eyelids to open. Overhead, wooden beams stretched up into the shadows. A single
light flickered. Sliding her tongue over rough, dry lips, she turned her head,
looking for the light.

 
    
Sam filled her vision, his face harsh in
the shadows cast by the kerosene lamp. It had to be kerosene. She could smell
the oily smoke. Her throat burned when she swallowed and blessed coldness
washed over her face.

 
    
He was bathing her cheeks with a damp
cloth.

 
    
“Easy there, Miss Scarlett.” The gruff tone
was nearly gentle, betraying a kindness she thought she’d imagined during their
nighttime flight from Dorado. Her head ached. Her chest was worse.

 
    
“Hurt,” she managed to whisper, surprised
at the rawness of her voice.

 
    
“You’re burning up.” The cool swipe off the
cloth stroked relief over her face, softening the too taut skin. She was so
hot. The fiery pricks of heat stabbed into her consciousness, the fire in her
belly was raging in her blood, scorching her skin.

 
    
“Not safe for you here.” Terror chased the
flames through her blood. Overhead, the wood taunted her. Her gaze skittered
around the room. It was a log cabin. Like those she’d seen sprawled about the
property.

 
    
She could torch the place with a stray
thought.

 
    
“Shh,” Sam whispered, his hand dipping down
off the bed. Water splashed and then the cold cloth was bathing her face again.
“We’re getting more ice. Pa went for the doctor. You should have told us you
weren’t feeling well.”

 
    
“Not safe,” she tried again. She didn’t
want to burn him. She didn’t want to burn anyone.

 
    
But the fire was a living presence inside
of her, coiling like a snake, building up pressure, and rattling a warning that
it could strike at any moment.

 
    
She struggled against the bed, slippery ice
trickling down her sides, soaking the mattress beneath her bare back. Sam’s
hands came to rest on her shoulders, forcing her back. His hands were
deliciously cold on her naked flesh. Scarlett paused, reality dousing her
overheated mind more effectively than the ice melting on her chest.

 
    
She was naked. Her nude body bathed in ice
that was rapidly melting. Her gaze dipped downwards, skating over the flushed
skin and hard peaks of her nipples that strained towards the ceiling. Her hips
were soaked, but damp cloth clung to them. The cotton pantaloons with their
single drawstring were nearly transparent with wetness.

 
    
Her startled gaze skittered back up to meet
Sam’s. His cheeks dimpled with a sheepish smile that had her fighting for
breath all over again.

 
    
“My apologies, Miss Scarlett.” He cleared
his throat, his gaze remaining fixed on her face, even as his hands left her
shoulders. “You were burning up and you couldn’t breathe. By the time I got the
dress open, I could see the fever in your skin.”

 
    
His fingers stroked the damp hair off her
forehead, so utterly gentle in their ministrations and he was bathing her face
again. The almost sweet smile stretching his full lips was a beautiful thing.

 
    
The roiling heat in her belly shifted,
clenching and rippling. She shivered, the icy trickles tingling over her
nipples and she pulled her hands up defensively, covering them. Her gaze
dropped to Sam’s chest.

 
    
His bare chest.

 
    
Her heart squeezed. Her lungs flamed.

 
    
A whole new heat raged along her skin.

 
    
Her brothers were going to kill her.

 
    
Worse.

 
    
Her brothers would kill Sam.

 
    
C
ody
lay flat against the rocks, his ears pinned back and a low, rumbling growl
escaping his throat. He’d shifted hours ago, criss-crossing their back trail
and erasing it, but still the posse followed them. It made no damn sense. The
man leading them, however, seemed to have the same grit and determination in
chasing them as Cody did it trying to evade that posse.

 
    
Three days since they’d had to abandon
Scarlett in Dorado. Three days of cutting south and west until they were in the
high desert and its hard, stone escarpments promised them no trail left behind.
Below, horses picketed, the armed men were sitting around a fire, dining on
beef jerky and bad coffee. Their leader, though, he was studying the rocky
outcroppings, watching the landscape and time and again, his head turned to the
overhang Cody hugged.

 
    
His rested his muzzle against his paws, fur
bristling. If he could angle the maneuver, he wanted to get close enough to
their leader to sniff him. It was unnatural how well he stayed on their trail.
Ike could do that, but Ike was gifted. He could track across blank landscape,
following some sense that only he could see.

 
    
But Ike was a part of the Gang of Seven, he
was raised by Quanto and like his brothers, he was marked. But Cody knew they
were not alone in this world, that there were others like them. Others who
would hunt Quanto for what he knew.

 
    
The growl rumbling in his throat threatened
to increase in volume, so he snapped it off, letting his lips curl away from
his teeth instead. If their hunter was indeed one of the others, then Scarlett
was in even more danger, because they would recognize her.

 
    
They would want her.

 
    
Few of the females survived the fever.
Fewer still were as powerful as she was. The thought of Scarlett did little to
calm him. Their trackers were picketing their lines, creating a strong
perimeter. The posse wouldn’t move again with the sun sinking down behind the
escarpments. They’d learned their lesson that first night when the Gang had
turned on them, injuring, hampering and turning back the other search parties.

 
    
All but this one.

 
    
Cody studied the young who leaned back
against his saddle, his shaded gaze still seeming to see straight to where Cody
was lying. Full darkness was only minutes away, the sun setting fast this time
of year, the hot desert would come to life as the creatures scurried out to
hunt, to drink and to roam.

 
    
His nose twitched as he caught another
scent on the breeze. The musk of fur, sand and sun. He let the rumbling growl
escape his throat and it carried until the scent thought better of continuing
up towards his rock.

 
    
He saw the coyote in a flash of movement.
It was small, scrawny and hardly a threat. But the heavy teats swinging below
suggested that it was female and it had pups nearby. Cody apologized mentally,
he would leave the bitch and her pups be soon enough.

 
    
The sun was a dying thought on the horizon
when Cody rose to his haunches. Stretching, he shook himself thoroughly,
scattering the sand and dust that lay on him like a blanket. His claws clicked
on the rock as he padded his way down the escarpment. The Gang of Seven was camped
on the far side of the curving canyons, waiting for him.

 
    
Cody reached the desert floor and weaved
his way through the rocks, six-foot cacti and scrub brush. He circled the
posse’s camp, moving downwind. He wanted to scent the leader.